The Learning Process - Part 51I cannot determine from our video logs exactly what our next learning process was. I do remember either our first or second year I started watching fly tying videos. I was interested in how they were produced more than the actual instructions for tying flies. I was not a fly tier. I also purchased some books on the subject.

The first thing that I remember noticing that was consistent with the videos and the books was that it seemed the author or person in the video would say that you determined the amount of hackle you wanted to put on your fly based on where you were going to fish it. My of hand thought was how can you do that and make the fly look like a real bug. Of course, I also realized that many flies were not being tied to look like any real bug. It seemed the tier was more interested in putting his personal touch on it to where it could be uniquely identified as his.

My thoughts were, and still are by the way, that it seemed like you should dress the fly to look like the natural as much as possible. I knew that just as important it should also act like or behave like the natural. I still couldn't understand why if a certain insect hatched from a certain type of water, say fast water in a run, why it needed to have more hackle (which I learned was supposed to imitate the legs of a the insect) than the real insect had legs or more tails than the real bug had tails. The answer was quite obvious on the videos and in the books. It was to make the fly ride higher in the water so the angler could see it better. That being the case, I began to wonder why it was important to have the fake fly ride higher in the water than a real bug obviously would ride. It seemed as if every time I read or watched something, it appeared what happened was more of a product of what the tier wanted than what a real natural insect would encounter.

I was watching one of A. K. Best's videos and reading one of his books when I noticed that he claimed the exact shade of color was very important. It was so important he make slides of the real insects and blew them up to a very large size on a wall so he could get the color thing down just right. He worked with the studio lights to get all natural light to keep the same colors that the real insects would have on the water.

When the particular fly he was talking about was being tied, I noticed he tied in a huge clump of tail hairs for the mayfly he was suppose to be imitating. I knew the real fly had either two or three tails and I knew 50 or 75 tails didn't quite match the tails of the real fly. Later, his explanation came when he said that he didn't think trout could count. I didn't either, so I skipped over that for a minute and then the though hit me that the many tails didn't resemble the tails of the real mayfly in any conceivable respect. He had the length down and that was about the only thing close to a real mayflies tail. I believe the mayfly he was tying was to imitate the Pale Morning Duns, a little mayfly similar to our Sulphur in the East. My thoughts were, and still are, that how could the exact shade of color be critically important but the size and shape of the tails, for example, not even remotely close to the natural.

Now this is not about fly tying. This is about how the trout sees the fly. The same thing I have been writing about for the last few days. My point is that when I got involved watching videos and reading about fly tying, I discovered that some things seem to matter to an incredible extent and others didn't seem to matter at all. I could give many more fly tying examples but I don't think I have to. I think most of you get the point.

It seemed to me that the fly should be tied to match the naturals appearance and behavior as much as possible. It wasn't until I started to learn that insects don't hatch the same way and in the same areas of the streams that I learned yet another thing that until this day just blows my mind. At that point in time I was told and taught, from what little outside help I had, that you cast upstream and placed you dry fly in certain areas of the stream in order that it would drift down those areas where the bubbles were. That make perfect sense. That was were most insects that hatched would be drifting, right? That is where the trout would be lying to eat them, right? It all sounded good and I bought it up until I began to learn that many of the insects didn't hatch were it was possible for them to drift in that magic place.

I began to learn that many didn't even hatch in the water. They crawled out of the water and hatched into duns, in the case of mayflies, or hatched into adults in the case of caddisflies and stoneflies. I found out that all stoneflies crawled out of the water to hatch about our second year of fly fishing. Then it occurred to me that the dry fly was supposed to imitate the egg layers. They would be drifting down the same places I was told to alway place my fly - right?. It didn't take me long to find out that was not correct either. In fact, most of them didn't drift on the surface at all and most of them didn't lay their eggs in the places I was taught to place my fly. I found out that most all mayflies moved to slow or moderate water to hatch. They would hatch and within seconds depart the water without ever drifting down those places I had been taught to place my fly.

I began to learn that there was a lot more to imitating the behavior of aquatic insects that was I was learning from the fly tying book and videos. I began to learn there was a lot more to imitating them than I had been taught with regards as to where to place my fly.

To put it bluntly, I began to learn that many anglers didn't have a clue about the behavior of the insect they were trying to imitate. The were just coping other anglers. That made perfect sense. I had witnessed that for years fishing for many other species of fish. (Continued)Copyright 2009 James Marsh